


Zero Plans and a Whole Lot of Baggage

by Hyacinthz



Category: The Penumbra Podcast
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Other, POV First Person, domestic fluff? there's cooking. and RITA, i Can Have Little a Unrealistic Sap. as a treat, man in glass coda, peter vs the mortifying ordeal of being known
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-12
Updated: 2020-03-12
Packaged: 2021-03-01 04:28:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,315
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23069239
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hyacinthz/pseuds/Hyacinthz
Summary: He sits on the edge of his bed, legs tensed like a detective ready to make a quick exit. He looks me in the eye. “I do forgive you, you know.”Man in Glass coda, or: Juno Steel and the excruciatingly long pause
Relationships: Peter Nureyev/Juno Steel
Comments: 38
Kudos: 132





	Zero Plans and a Whole Lot of Baggage

He doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t say anything for just this side of too long and I'm _really_ close to losing it. And then he sits forward a little, his face doesn't change at all. Which might mean he’s as good at putting a mask on as he ever was.

Or it might mean he meant to do this all along.

 _This,_ by the way, is a slow and careful face-plant into my chest.

He’s shaking just a little and I’ve recently become acquainted with body-snatching technology. I’ve had things use me like a puppet lately: erase all the thoughts in my head, aim me face-first at something dangerous, and pull the trigger.

So I should be scared, huh? Scared that I really don’t intend to pull him closer, to keep my hold on him. Scared that I make weird noises and pet him and that I don’t complain about the way his glasses dig into my sternum, not even to try for a laugh.

I can at least wrestle words out, not that I have a chance of knowing what they'll be: “Hey, Nureyev. Hey. I’ve got you.”

He doesn’t pull away, doesn’t stop shaking, but he does wrap his arms around my waist. So.

I make sure my breaths are slow and even. That helps sometimes, right? Rita says it helps. “Everything okay? Saw Buddy come by earlier. You’re not—I mean. She wasn’t pissed, right?”

Those glasses, that face shifts against me just barely. It may be the least eloquent he’s ever been, but that’s a _no._

“She shouldn’t be. We’re a good team.” When he insisted I sit on his bed, I sat right at the edge like a jumpy rabbit pup. Like a detective ready to make a quick exit. And I don’t wanna let go of him, I really, really don’t. But we’re both gonna end up on the floor in a second, so: “C’mere. You’re okay, I’ve just gotta move some. Come here.” I reorient us and I don’t look at him. I pull him around and he lets me move him without comment. But I don’t look at him. I’d like to. Who am I kidding? I’d love to. I don’t know what he’s thinking, I don’t even know if he’s okay. But something makes me guess that if I catch his eyes right now, he’ll have to slip a mask on again. Maybe not all of them, but at least one.

Wounds and people have to breathe once and a while. Trust me—if anyone’s gonna know, it’s the lady with a historically bad grasp on self-care and scars all the way down. But if he’s anything like me, this might be his first time airing stuff out since—

Anyway. It works. I pull the two of us into his bed, which experience says should end poorly. Mostly though, it just smells like him. It’s nice. He takes off his glasses and sets them on the nightstand before he hunches back into place against me. I wonder what his eyesight’s like—I’ve never asked. I wonder what he can see like this.

Well. Probably not too much, his face is plastered against my shirt. But you get the picture.

“Hey.” And maybe I’m not comfortable enough with moments like this. Maybe I could do better at sitting with things—things like feelings, things like long silences, things like Rita’s streams and running commentary (the **exact** opposite of a long silence, for the curious). Maybe I’m about to shatter something and regret it later.

Or maybe I can say what I want to say, start a conversation I want to have in the only way I really know how. And maybe while we’re curled up here in the dim ship lighting, it’ll sound less like a fight and more like an invitation. I’ll try anything once: “Hey. You were a real dick today, you know that?”

He laughs. The place he’s been resting his face is damp. Cloth sticks to me as he holds me closer, just a second, before pulling away. “I was, rather, wasn’t I? But what is it they say? Takes one to know one.” He’s maskless still, he’s smiling. And I really lose my breath for a moment there.

I speak once I get it back: “Touché. Made up for it all by the end. Excellent work, Monsieur Dauphin.”

“And I could never have done it without you, my dear Madame. After all, we are the very best of teams.” And it isn’t a mask, not really. But just like me headed home after a bender, it’s something practiced at stumbling in that direction. And maybe his eyesight isn’t as bad as I assumed, or maybe I just carry my expression, my worry, in my—everything. Because his face goes serious and sad and: “Oh, Juno.”

And that hits, oh, just about how a pissed-off bouncer hits _before_ I decide to stumble my way home. Because Peter Ransom didn’t say my name like that, and I’m thinking that’s the only reason I survived on this ship this whole handful of days. Because Nureyev always did that, didn’t he? Said it like that. So did Duke and Rex and—and the last time he’d said it that way it’d been sleepy, soft, and in the dark of that hotel room.

His fingers on my waist flex and I don’t know if he’s about to let me go or hold me tight. For what it’s worth, I’ve still got him. I’ll let him go, of course I will. If that’s what he wants. He’ll have to ask me, first.

He doesn’t pull his hands away and, oh. He may have to beg me to leave if he wants me gone after this. He may need a bouncer. Not—not in a creepy way, I just. I just really—“You eat yet?”

We both blink a little in the wake of that. God, Steel, what a question.

“I—I haven’t.” And the mask is slipping back, but that’s okay. It was never going to be forever. I _saw_ him, that’s what matters. And he sees me, I know it.

“Me neither. Rita brought all the contents of my fridge and they’re hogging up the galley. And they’re gonna go bad soon enough. Dinner? I’ll cook.”

He twists and retrieves his glasses. He sits up. I do, too. “I didn’t know you cook.”

Twelve hours ago, his tone would have been condescending and actually pretty offensive. Now, though. He sounds almost shy. Two years ago I would’ve bet money that Peter Nureyev had never been shy a day in his life. “I’m okay. Good enough for me, for sure. Rita doesn’t complain much. And Benten liked my cooking.”

He looks at me, sharp. I just breathe through it, I keep my face still. I have to—it’s the only way I can just—

I have to talk about him. There’s a hokey metaphor about an eroded dam I could pull out, but it’s less like a broken barrier and more like, well. I’ve realized I’m allowed to miss him without it feeling like someone just shot me. _No? Too soon, Super-Steel?_ It can hurt a little. It doesn’t have to rip me open every time.

“Well.” I wonder if he notices he’s doing it: ever since I said my piece, he leans my way. It doesn’t look purposeful at all. It’s. . . a lot. “I think you’ll need to cook something, then. I do like to judge for myself.”

“I’ve noticed that about you.” I stand and he follows. “Ready, Peter? Ransom?” I let my mouth curl warm around the name because he is _so_ transparently not Peter Ransom right now. He straightens his shoulders in a hurry and does something with the set of his face. He’s not listing my direction anymore, but I catch the high spots of his cheeks going just a little pink. He sniffs once and eyes the front of my shirt which, yup. It’s a little caked in makeup.

“I ought to—I need to fix my face.”

I wave him toward the alcove where he set up a full vanity. Honestly. I think this might be the largest room on the damn boat. “I’ll wait.” And I get to snooping.

I end up just poring over stacks of doodles pulled from one of his jackets. I’m nosy and this seems like a safe bet—like any secrets here will be as abstract as his artwork of _a zoo he once saw._ And I’m almost right. They're all scribbles and none of them make me feel a thing except for a cocktail napkin erupting in carefully oriented petals, tight at the middle and expanding outward to the edges. Where he ran out of napkin, he rounded out the space between each petal with ink to keep the whole thing from turning square. It's a decent likeness. I trace the lines from the inside, out. They remind me of a suit in my closet.

“Darling,” he says. “Are _you_ ready?”

I’m happy about the delay in the end because we get to the galley and Rita’s the only one in there, sitting at the head of the dining table with her knees to her chin and her fingers punching away at her comms. And hey, maybe it’s that same song again: _yadda yadda yadda, straightforward communication, blah blah blah, don’t deflect_. But there’s a little buzz that comes with having your favorite people in the same room and, sue me. It’s been a really long time.

“Rita, dinner?” Nureyev winces a little at my volume. I’ve had my inside voice on for him all night. But Rita is Rita and she grins up at us.

“Sure, boss. Hi, Mister Ransom. What’s on the menu?”

“You’re in charge of inventory, aren’t you? What’ve we got?”

“Good evening. You should call me Peter, dear.” He sits at the table.

I eye him. I know what she’ll say, but I wonder what he’s thinking. He meets my eye. Ah. The mask isn’t all the way there, huh?

That’s—that’s something.

“No thanks, Mister Ransom. It’s like I tell the boss, it’s just—well, it’s just _weird!_ I’m being polite and all, sure. But it’s different when it’s Mister Steel for sure. I ain’t calling him by name, no way. And if I change for one of our crime family, don’t I gotta—”

“Rita?” There’s a twist to her mouth like she’s making up her mind on whether she’s annoyed I interrupted. “Why not call him Peter? I do.”

“You call him Ransom, boss, don’t you lie to me.” But she nods. She’s got me. And when she looks at him, it’s assessing. I can imagine the clues she gathers because we’re a team: she’s caught his softened eyes behind the fresh application of makeup, the smudge of the old stuff on my front. And I’ll _actually_ have to fire her if she hasn’t noticed that there’s air left in the room while we both occupy it. For a while there, I worried I’d never breathe easy beside him again. “Cloned beef, boss. You ain’t been making your breakfast, just eating up all Mister Jet’s cooking every morning. ‘S gotta be something with that, or it’ll be about fifteen breakfasts of cloned beef hash and eggs before, say, next week when the meat goes off. And I ain’t doing it, boss. I told you. Not again. Whatd’ya think, Mister Peter?”

“Juno’s never cooked for me before.” He flourishes his hands against the tabletop a little for literally no reason at all. It’s cute. My name sits in his mouth like he’s Duke, like he’s Rex, like he’s Peter Nureyev. I wonder if Rita hears the difference. “I bow to your expertise, my dear.”

“Ooh, boss. Didn’t tell me you’re cooking to impress.” She grins and giggles and she’s still taking stock. Maybe there’s a day coming where she’d coo and cackle and say _OH, It’s a DATE,_ and remove herself after throwing an innuendo Nureyev’s way. But I’ve made some bad choices in partner before, so. Here’s Rita, here to chaperone.

Wouldn't have it any other way. Is it weird? I want her to see this. There aren’t many living witnesses to the Nureyev and Steel show. I want to take her aside later and ask if I’m going crazy: _We do, don’t we? We really do. We make a good team._

“Anything you want, Rita. What’s your favorite? Your favorite that involves, oh, whatever else was in my fridge and about ten pounds of cloned beef.”

“There’s a carton of synth-eggs in there, I think. How about an omelet? But OOH, boss. Something spicy. Something interesting, you’re good at that. And there’s that expensive Venusian pepper paste in there I think. And some of those skinny onions, you know the ones. You could crisp ‘em up, that’d be nice.”

“Yeah. I can do that. Ransom. Any allergies? Everything to your taste?”

“It sounds wonderful, love.” And oh. I don’t look at Rita or Nureyev, but it’s impossible to miss the noise Rita makes. “I don’t have any allergies. I—I don’t care for fungi much.”

“No mushrooms, Peter. Got it.” I meet his eyes and I have to look away again. I’ve never seen him look like that. Well. Maybe I have. Maybe I had to forget what he looked like to make myself leave the room. I start grabbing ingredients, I wash my hands. “Rita, you realize that a cloned beef omelet is, uh, wait for it: cloned beef and eggs?”

“Ain’t the same, boss. You’re missing the HASH. You always used to use that canned stuff. And you’ve never got any color in your breakfast, it’s always so. . . brown.”

“Rita, I swear. If this beef turns any color other than brown when I sear it, it’s all yours. And if you’ve got any nice hash to share, well. You know my policy on that.”

"You sound like a cop, boss."

Nureyev doesn’t talk much. He chats with us, but mostly he takes turns looking at Rita, looking at me. He smiles, but when he thinks we aren’t looking he reverts to that expression, the one just shy of, well. Shy. More than that, though: there's some tension in the corners of his mouth, at the edges of his eyes. I really only remember seeing him like this in those good old days when we were buried alive. And that says enough on its own, doesn’t it? That I see him vulnerable at all. I want to grab him. I want to ask what cracked him open like this. I don’t think it was all me.

He could tell me he's okay. That’s all I want. He does that and maybe I can back off for a second.

I plate the food and sit across the table from him.

“Oh, Juno,” he says after a bite. And _wow._ Rita even gives me the pointed look she usually reserves for life-and-death situations, the one where her eyes just scream _BOSS!!!!_ So, yeah. I’m guessing she can hear the difference between Ransom and—and him. “Juno. This is exceptional. You cook like this and you've kept it from me all along?”

“He’s just showin’ off, Mister Peter. Don’t get too excited about it.”

“Not remembering a lot of chances to cook, Ransom.” And yeah, I’m poking him a little. So what?

His eyes shine. His smile curls at the corners, he shows teeth. Oh, I’d missed that. “There's a morning I remember. That morning, I think, could certainly have been improved by an omelet or two.”

Rita does her best not to actually lose it, but the way she kicks her feet gives it away. And you know what? I appreciate her restraint, I really do. I’m actually aiming for about the same thing myself.

“Well, I always welcome feedback, Ransom. Bet next time’s better, huh? More omelets to go around, at least.” I meet his eyes and he looks like Nureyev. He looks like he's planning—well. Rita’s polite company for the moment, so better not think too hard about what he may or may not be planning.

We eat. The two of us finish quick, but Rita takes a little longer. She stands immediately after she clears her plate. “Boss, you cooked. And _you._ One of you is being wooed, so I’m doing the dishes while you two sort all that out. Mister Steel, don’t say I never did anything for you.”

“I’d never.” I snag Nureyev’s plate and hand them both to her. “Hey, Rita? Have a good night. And thanks.”

“Yeah, yeah.” She waves me away. “Yeah, I’d better. Got a date with _Neptune’s Daughter X_ , which is real confusing. Cause _IX_ was just a boring period drama set in 22nd century Earth, but all the others had, like. Pretty mermaids on Neptune. So who knows how the night’ll go, boss. _IX_ won a few awards, so I’m not optimistic. But I hope you have a good night, Mister thief—Peter. Been real nice meeting you finally.”

“Rita,” he says. His hand rests on his chest, his fingers curl against his sternum. I wonder if he notices. “You, too.”

We leave the galley together. I follow him back to his room, or maybe I’m herding. Maybe I’m ushering him into the spin of some vortex, whirling the two of us closer to something unexplored and rocky. Something that’ll leave me, at best, sick to my stomach.

At worst—

Not sure it matters in the end, I’m doing it anyway. When he shuts the door behind us, he looks a little like he’s been whacked over the head with a blaster. “Hey,” I say. “You okay?”

“You keep asking me that. I’m afraid I don’t entirely know what to say.” He sits on the edge of his bed, legs tensed like a detective ready to make a quick exit. He looks me in the eye. “I do forgive you, you know.”

I let all my breath out at once, like the bag of hot air everyone in the precinct always said I was. I drop next to him. “Yeah, well, I didn’t. I hoped, but it’s nice to know. And Nureyev—by my count, it's only the second time I've asked tonight.”

His eyes flick to and from mine. His gaze ends up aimed firmly at his lap. “You thought it. Often and loudly. Anyone could see it miles away.”

“Yeah, well. You were dodging the question. Gotta keep asking, that’s basic interrogation stuff. I actually said it out loud, those are the advanced tactics. That’s how you know I’m a real expert in my field, huh?”

“I’m trying very hard.” He breathes, steady. His hands reach for my shirt. It’s an old rag, a tank top that's seen better days. I wanted something comfy after the voluminous stretch of Dauphin’s gown. He anchors his fingers in it near the neckline. He's cold even through the fabric. 

“I know, I know you are. I see it.” I place my hands over his, fit each of my thumbs in his palms and let my fingers loosely cage the rest. “You’re trying to stay. You’re really doing it.” I snort a laugh. “Way better than I did. But Nureyev. I won’t leave again unless you ask me to. Not—I don’t mean your room. I’ll leave your room whenever you want. But I—you’ve gotta make your own choice with this, with us. You’ve gotta know, I’m not leaving again unless you want me to. Not when I still feel like—when I still feel.”

“Oh, Juno.” Beneath my hold his hands tense, his fingers flex, his wrists pull. "Stay." He’s got a good grip and, hell. It’s nothing at all to let him move me.

**Author's Note:**

> [Rex Glass voice] woof, woof
> 
> Title borrowed from the script for Juno Steel and the Man in Glass pt 2
> 
> thanks for reading! find me @bruno-bronze on tumblr if you wanna! I'm Shy but I have no tpp mutuals, i'm dyin' over there.


End file.
